bittersweet truths
by Magical Poof
Summary: You love him but he's in love with a dead girl. [orihime second-person POV]


**NOTES:** A little drabble for IchiRuki Month day 16: jealousy and/or love rivals. Late if you're in my timezone, but still on-time if you're in a more western one haha. I gotta admit, I loooove the angst of a one-sided love. This is set at an early point in the 17 months Ichigo didn't have his powers, so before he learned to fake his smile and hide how depressed he was. Thanks for reading and a huge thanks for those who leave reviews!

Also this site keeps deleting my linebreaks... STOP.

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You love him but he's in love with a dead girl.

You love him and he's in love with a memory—a memory of a girl with raven hair and amethyst eyes. A girl in a yellow dress. A girl who came and went like a winter storm, wild and wicked and cruel.

But Kuchiki-san was not unkind. She was not without warmth or compassion, and there was certainly _something_ gentle in the way she looked at him (and something powerful and unwavering and terribly raw). But she had a way of sweeping him up in her wake, a careless habit of barreling in and out of his life without concern for the feelings she trampled or emotions she stirred up. She was the moon tugging at the tides and the seas rose eagerly—inevitably—up to meet her when she was there, and receded back into themselves, drifting and aimless, when she was gone.

And it is not really her fault. You don't blame her for her absences any more than he does, even if it makes your throat tight and your heart heavy to see that distant, faraway look in his eyes. Days, months, years—for someone who lives for _centuries_ unchanging, seventeen months must be a mere blink, a breath between heartbeats.

And you do your best—because that's all you ever can do—to cheer him up. To keep him company. To try to cram yourself into the spaces she's left, even though you don't fit quite right. You're soft where she was hard, timid where she was bold, quiet where she was loud. But sometimes you hit just the right note and—ah! There it is, one of those smiles he reserves only for Kuchiki-san. You feel your face flush and your heart flutter as the words stutter and stumble away to nothing.

You hoard the memory of that smile, giggling to yourself for weeks over it. You try to tell yourself not to be greedy—you force yourself not to beg more from him because they're not for you, not really. They're for a girl who isn't here, but who must be at the end of those faraway eyes, those long sighs.

Today you rush back to the classroom to grab your notebook for the next class and there he is—all alone, face in shadow as he stares out the window at something he can't see. You pick up your notebook and hesitate. It's still difficult to approach him when you don't have a reason. You're not really friends who casually hang out in the break between classes or at lunch. You try to be as loud as you can in the classroom in the off-chance you might say or do something that catches his attention, draw him back from the ghosts and memories.

"Kurosaki-kun," you say, because even though you've known him for years, you can't bring yourself to call him Ichigo. It doesn't feel right. The word curls on the tip of your tongue but you are too nervous—too cowardly—to say them aloud. But he's gone away again, withdrawn into that place inside him where Zangetsu once waited—where her power once filled him.

"I-Ichigo-kun," you fumble awkwardly, tripping over your own tongue. His name sits awkwardly in your mouth, and feels too familiar, too close, too _real_. He turns his gaze on you then and you're a little frightened by the intensity of them before he seems to awaken from whatever daylight nightmare had drawn him in. His eyes turn bland, almost vacant, and he seems to stare through you.

"Oh, sorry, Inoue. What's up?"

You bite your lip, startled, then smile for him—you've always been good a smiling and he doesn't know you well enough to tell when you're faking it, though you wish he did.

"Sorry to bother you, Kurosaki-kun, but, um, did you hear about class being moved to the science lab?"

He sighs and nods. "Right, thanks. I'll be there in a sec."

There is something sluggish, almost _resigned_ in the way he gathers his things. You aren't sure what to say or do to make him snap out of it, to draw him out of this stupor. You clutch your notebook to your chest and watch him go, still struggling to find the words. But what can you say about this new reality that won't hurt him? What can you say that won't touch the open wound where his power once lay?

This is the truth you are too afraid to say—that without his powers:

There's no such thing as ghosts.

There's no such thing as Shinigami.

There's just dead girls and memories.


End file.
